Blog Traffic Tips Newsletter by Yaro Starak

Find out why blog readers unsubscribe from RSS feeds and what they really want from your blog.
Read more below….

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WHAT DO RSS READERS REALLY WANT?

I was reading Darren Rowse’s blog post where he collected feedback from his readers about why they unsubscribe from RSS feeds. I love it when Darren gathers feedback from the market like this because he has such a large audience of professional bloggers, he gets a good sample selection to draw conclusions from.

What was interesting about the research is that in response to the question about why people unsubscribe from RSS feeds, some people said –

Too many blog posts, I can’t keep up.

and others said –

Not frequent enough new posts.

Huh?

Hmm, okay, so you don’t want too many posts or people unsubscribe, but if you don’t post often enough people unsubscribe. Bugger, that’s tricky.

I’ve said this before, I think the best policy when it comes to the frequency of blog posts is to create an expectation from your readers by being consistent.

If YOU think you can blog every day then start doing it and keep at it, but don’t go over board and start posting ten new articles every day or you will overwhelm readers.

Only the very focused news blogs can get away with 10 entries a day and even then readers ignore a good chunk of the posts they are not interested in.

In my case I like to blog either every day, or every other day and no more than five or so days without a new article. That’s what my readers came to expect from me and that’s what I feel comfortable delivering. When they don’t see a new post from me in five days it’s okay, they know sometimes I take a break but I’m still there, I have not abandoned my blog.

However if a guy like Darren, who has new content published every day, often multiple articles per day, stopped blogging for a few days, people would start wondering if he fell of a cliff or something.

The key is to be consistent, write as often as you feel you can over the long term so you start forming patterns your readers can follow, but do not stop posting for too long. People unsubscribe from blogs that appear dead, and if they look back over your archives and see a new article only once every month, unless you are Richard Branson or someone else famous, they are not going to subscribe to your blog.

Other tips worth mentioning were –

Don’t just regurgitate the same content coming out in other places. There’s a fine line between adding value and replication with no value when you talk about someone else’s news. Take this newsletter you are reading now as a good example of adding value to a story already published elsewhere.

Stay on topic. While it’s okay to go off on tangents, always try and relate it back to your core readership’s reason for being there.

Personal attacks, consistent negativity and too many apologies are no-nos. Don’t just write a post to your blog apologising to your readers for not writing often enough. That’s a mistake I see a lot of bloggers make – why on earth do you want to highlight the fact that you are under-delivering?

EARN INCOME FOR WRITING REVIEWS ON YOUR BLOG

ReviewMe is a service that attracts advertisers who want to buy “sponsored reviews” on blogs. If an advertiser chooses your blog and you accept the review, It’s your job to write a blog post about the website or blog or service or product and you get paid for it. The reviews can be completely honest – you can be critical if you think it appropriate – and you have to disclose that it is a paid review.

If you haven’t signed up for ReviewMe yet, and you have a reasonable amount of traffic going to your blog at the moment (say about 100 visitors minimum, preferably at least 500 readers a day), then do so right now –

In my case I’ve been earning about $375 a month for the past two months, selecting three reviews and knocking back a few.

John Chow went nuts and accepted 18 reviews, bringing in $2250 USD in one month alone!

Bear in mind that he has a popular blog, and like mine, advertisers pay a high price per review. At first if your blog is not busy you shouldn’t expect too many reviews and you will get paid less per review.

For some of you an extra $50 – $100 a month can help motivate you to keep blogging and keep building traffic, so it’s worth giving yourself the chance to make money.

The following lessons are from my original “blog traffic king” email newsletter, my first ever email course with one lesson per week delivered for a year. There are some real gems in these articles too, so don’t skip them!